Monster Lake (12 page)

««—»»

It didn’t take her long to get to the woods
behind Terri’s house; she’d jogged the whole way. And even though
it was the middle of the night, she didn’t have any problem seeing.
The moon was full and very bright and it lit up Terri’s backyard
quite well. Even when Patricia entered the narrow path between the
trees, she could see just fine; the moonlight reached down through
the high branches and illuminated the walkway.

Her footsteps crunched over the gravel. The
path wound down through the woods until it ended at the boathouse
and the creaky-planked pier. Patricia stood still a moment, at the
front of the dock, and glanced out. The lake looked perfectly
black, with squiggles of white moonlight floating on the surface.
Tiny green-glowing dots, thousands of them, blinked on and off in
between the trees and over the lake—lightning bugs. And just the
sound of the lake itself seemed so intense, the shrill, pulsating
chorus of crickets. For a moment there, standing on the wooden
dock, Patricia felt as though she were the only person in the
world.

The windows of the boathouse were dark.

She felt creepy looking at
it, for the boathouse reminded her of all the things that had been
happening lately—bizarre things, scary things, things that couldn’t
be explained. But that was the reason she’d come down here, wasn’t
it? To take some pictures that would
prove
what was going on.

So I better get on with
it,
she told herself.
The sooner I get some pictures, the sooner I’ll be out of
this creepy place and back home where it’s safe.

She looked out over the
pier’s rail, to examine the lake shore, and sure enough, she saw
lots of toads and salamanders.
They’re
huge!
she thought, amazed. But
unfortunately, they were too far away for her to get a picture of
them. She needed some close-ups, showing the fangs.

Then Patricia’s heart skipped a beat when
she walked around to the front of the boathouse.

A long black salamander with big yellow dots
on its back was sitting there on the pier, in the same place she
and Terri had seen the salamander this morning.

Only this one was even bigger…

And when it raised its wide, black head and
opened its mouth, Patricia could see the fangs all too well. She
jumped back, almost shrieked. The salamander’s pointed, white teeth
were easily as long as Patricia’s fingers!

Her first impulse was too
run. But that would defeat the whole purpose of coming down here,
and then she remembered how slow salamanders were.
Don’t be scared,
she
ordered herself.
Even if it tries to chase
me, I can out-run it easy. And I’ve got to get that
picture!

Patricia remained where she
stood. She raised the camera to her eyes, leaned over, and when she
did so, the salamander’s mouth opened even wider.
Perfect!
Patricia
thought. It was just what she wanted! Then she put her finger on
the camera’s button, began to press it down, and then—

The salamander jerked around very quickly
and slithered over the side of the pier into the water before
Patricia could snap the picture.

Oh, man!
she thought.
He’s
gone!

The toads and salamanders on the shore were
just too far away, and she sure didn’t want to walk down there. It
was all muddy and wet; her feet would sink in the mud, and she’d
make a mess of herself. She frowned in frustration, realizing that
coming down here had been a total waste. But…maybe not.

Just then she got an idea.

The boathouse,
she realized.

Terri had told her that there were more
toads and salamanders in the boathouse, in glass tanks in the
backroom. Of course, the boathouse door was locked, but then
Patricia also remembered how Terri had cleverly opened it with her
library card.

And it just so happened that Patricia had
her own library card in her pocket right this moment.

Can’t hurt to try,
she thought, taking out her card. The moon shined
right on the door; Patricia could see how the wedged bolt went into
the slot of the doorframe. She thought back, remembering how Terri
had done it, and then she did the same thing, slipping the card
against the bolt. She pushed down gently, working the card deeper
until the bolt started to move.

click!

Patricia couldn’t believe
it! The door opened just like that!
Well,
that was sure easy,
she thought. She went
into the front room and turned on the lights.
One down, one to go,
she thought, and
then went to work on the next door, the backroom door, marked DO
NOT ENTER.

This one was harder, and it took longer, but
in only a few minutes of jiggling the library card—

click!

—
this door opened
too.

“
Wow,” she muttered to
herself once she got the light on. “Terri was right.” Three of the
room’s walls were lined with metal shelves, and on the shelves were
dozens of square, glass tanks. In each tank there was either a toad
or a salamander, giant ones, like the one she’d already seen. And
they all had fangs…

But before Patricia could raise the camera
and start taking pictures, she noticed something else.

What is…that?

On the floor, toward the
other end of the room, there was a big trapdoor, with large metal
hinges and a lifting ring.
Why would they
have a trapdoor in the floor?
she wondered.
It couldn’t lead to a basement because she knew the only thing
under the boathouse was water.

What could be down there?

Well, that was one question
she couldn’t answer, because the trapdoor had a large, heavy-duty
padlock on it. There was no way she could use the library card
on
that
—it needed
a key.

And then she noticed something else.

More shelves,
she saw. On the next wall. Only these shelves
contained glass bottles instead of glass tanks, and the bottles
were filled with this mucky-looking stuff.

Yuck!
Patricia thought when she picked up one of the bottles to have
a closer look. The bottle was heavy and felt slightly warm, and
when she shook it, the gunk in the bottle barely moved at
all.
What
is
that stuff?
she wondered.
It looks like mud, only
it’s yellow.
It had a small label on it
that read REAGENT 7c
.
Reagent,
she remembered. One of the
words they’d looked up in her father’s dictionary. In fact, all of
the yellow bottles had labels with the same word. But then, when
she looked closer, she noticed a few bottles full of green gunk,
and these bottles had a different label.
COUNTER-REAGENT
,
they read. Another one of the words they’d looked
up.

This was all very interesting, not to
mention weird, but Patricia knew she better take her pictures and
get out of here. It was getting really late. So she reached up to
put the yellow bottle back on the shelf and—

NOOOOO!
she thought, her heart suddenly beating wildly in
her chest.

The heavy bottle slipped out of her fingers
and fell—

crash!

—
right on the floor where
it shattered into hundreds of pieces.

“
Now you’ve
really
done it!” Patricia
said aloud. “I’m going to get in
all
kinds
of trouble for this!”

The yellow muck in the bottle spread quickly
across the floor. At once, a faint creeky smell filled the room.
Frantic, Patricia rushed about, looking for a mop and bucket to
clean up the mess, but there were none. All she could find, in a
small closet, were a few paper towels. She grabbed the towels, then
immediately knelt down and started picking up the big pieces of
broken glass, careful not to cut herself. And when she wiped at the
gunk on the floor—more bad luck.

The stuff was staining the wooden floor
yellow!

I better just leave
it,
she thought.
Maybe they’ll think the bottle just fell off the
shelf.
There was no way she’d be able to
clean it up properly. She put the paper towels in the
wastebasket.
Just take the pictures and
get out of here!
she thought. So she turned
toward one of the shelves with the glass tanks, raised the camera,
and—

thunk!

Patricia froze.

thunk!
she heard again.

Her heart beat violently against the inside
of her chest. What was that noise?

Then she looked down, and her eyes went wide
as big silver dollars.

The yellow gunk on the floor, she saw now,
was seeping down through the cracks in the trapdoor! And the
trapdoor—

thunk!

—
was where the thunking
sound was coming from!

But then came another sound, a much louder
one:

Ka-CRACK!

Patricia shrieked to herself. The trapdoor
slammed up an inch with the sound, and that’s when she realized the
most frightening thing of all—

Something’s under that door, and it’s trying
to get out!

And when she heard the sound again—

Ka-CRACK!

—
the padlock broke off, and
the trapdoor violently flew open, and Patricia thought her heart
would stop when she saw what was now climbing up into the
room…

««—»»

“Oh, I’m sorry, Terri, but Patricia can’t
come to the phone now,” Patricia’s mother said. “She’s not feeling
well.”

Terri’s eyes thinned as she held the phone
to her ear. She’d dialed Patricia’s number right after breakfast,
remembering their plans to go to the town library.

“
What’s wrong?” Terri
asked. “Is it her knee?”

“
No, we don’t know what’s
wrong with her,” Patricia’s mother worriedly replied. “We couldn’t
get her out of bed this morning. We think she may have come down
with the flu. The doctor’s coming over shortly. Why don’t you call
back this afternoon? Maybe she’ll be feeling better
then.”

“
Okay,” Terri said.
“’Bye.”

Terri hung up, raising an
eyebrow.
That’s funny,
she thought. Yesterday Patricia had had to go to the hospital
to get stitches in her knee, and today she’d caught the flu.
She didn’t look sick when I saw her last night.
She looked fine.

Oh, well. There was nothing Terri could do
about it. She hoped Patricia would get better soon, but it was
still disappointing because Terri was looking forward to going to
the library with her today, to find out more about those words.
Now, she’d have to go by herself.

“
Hi, honey,” her mother
said, walking into the kitchen.

“
Hi, Mom,” Terri replied
but then paused. Her mother was dressed in jeans and an old blouse,
not one of the usual dresses she wore to work. “How come you’re
dressed like that, Mom?”

“
Oh, I guess I forgot to
tell you, but I won’t be going to work today.”

“
Your mother’s taking the
day off, Terri,” her Uncle Chuck said, coming into the kitchen
himself. “But we’ll both be working down in the boathouse most of
the day.”

As usual,
Terri thought.

“
It’s for that special
project I’ve told you about,” her mother added.

Yeah, right,
Terri thought sarcastically. “What kind of project
is it, exactly?” she asked.

Uncle Chuck and her mother looked at each
other, as they had many times in the past.

Like they were hiding something.

“
Never you mind about
that,” her uncle cut in. “It’s complicated stuff that you wouldn’t
understand. Say, aren’t you going to the library with Patricia
today?”

“
No, I’ll have to go by
myself,” Terri said. “Patricia’s got the flu.”

“
Oh, that’s too bad,” her
mother said. “We’ll get pizza tonight for sure, okay?”

“
Great!” Terri said
enthusiastically. It would be the first time in months that they’d
had dinner together.

“
Well, have fun at the
library,” Uncle Chuck said. “Remember to be home before dinner
time.”

“
Okay,” Terri
said.

Then her mother and uncle, both toting the
familiar black briefcases, went out the back sliding door and
walked down to the boathouse.

Terri frowned after them. Why would her
mother be taking a day off work only to spend the entire day
working with Uncle Chuck in the boathouse? And it was weird the way
Uncle Chuck had cut Terri off when she’d asked about this “special
project.”

Things are just getting
weirder and weirder,
Terri thought. But at
least there was one good thing: they’d be having pizza together
tonight, and that was something they hadn’t done in a long time. It
would make things feel more like a family for a change.

She took her piece of notebook paper and
left the house, walking down the street. The day was so
beautiful—bright, warm, and sunny—it was hard to believe how weird
things seemed at night, how unreal and scary.